Clock Tower, Sighișoara

The Clock Tower stands at Piața Muzeului no. 1, in the middle of the southern wall of Sighișoara Citadel, and guards the main gate from the Lower Town. It is the most massive of the nine surviving towers out of the citadel's original fourteen and, unlike the others, which belonged to the guilds, it was public property of the town. It began as a simple gate tower, with a ground floor of river stone and walls about 2.30 m thick, dated to the fourteenth century. Two parallel vaulted passages run through its base. Until 1556, the room on the first level was the meeting hall of the town council. In the sixteenth century the tower was raised by two brick storeys and a wooden gallery. After the fire of 1676, the Baroque roof with four corner turrets was rebuilt in 1677 by the craftsmen Veit Gruber, Philipp Bonge and Valentinus Zimmermann. The corner turrets signalled the town's right to try cases and pass the death sentence. The tower has five levels and, with its gallery and roof, reaches 64 m. The clock, remade in 1648 by Johann Kirschel, has two dials, one facing the citadel and the other the Lower Town. The niches beside the dials hold limewood figures, remade in 1677 and restored in 1999-2001: Peace, Righteousness and Justice, two angels representing Day and Night, two drummers, the executioner and the seven figures of the days of the week, shown as ancient gods (Diana, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and the Sun). The current mechanism was made in Switzerland by the Fuchs company and installed on 1 April 1906. Since the late nineteenth century the tower has housed the Sighișoara History Museum, opened in 1899. Its collections include archaeology, pharmacy and medical instruments, art, furniture, musical instruments, guild objects, clocks, ethnography, edged weapons and firearms, and coins. The gallery on the top level serves as a viewpoint over the town. The tower is part of the Sighișoara fortifications (LMI code MS-II-a-A-15805) and of the Historic Centre of Sighișoara, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999.